The Sign of Four - teaching resource

The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  

This unit of work for The Sign of Four is made up of a 173-slide PowerPoint presentation, a 28-page booklet of worksheets and notes, and an 18 lesson overview.

The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle contains 18 lessons designed to develop pupil knowledge and understanding of the plot, characters, language, themes and the social and historical context of the novel. It includes a collection of activities for pupils of all abilities:

    -A brief biography of Conan Doyle and the crime novel genre

    -An explanation of the social and historical context of the novel (Victorian Britain, 1880s London and the British Empire)

    -Plot tracking and consolidation activities

    -Activities to explore the narrative structure of The Sign of Four

    -Analysis of the characters of Shelock Holmes, Dr John Watson, Mary Morstan, Jonathan Small and others

    -Exploration of the key themes of The Sign of Four  - good and evil, crime and punishment, justice, the British Empire, C19th Britain

    -Developing understanding of the features of a novel – character, theme, plot, style and language

    -Examining Conan Doyle's use of language and narrative structure - setting, description and pathetic fallacy

    -Reading and discussion tasks and questions

    -Links to additional The Sign of Four teaching and learning resources

    -An 18 lesson unit of work (following the four part lesson structure)

    -A 173-slide PowerPoint presentation (see preview below)

    -28 worksheets to accompany the PowerPoint

All PowerPoint slides are fully editable, so you can personalise and differentiate the resource as much or as little as you want. 

To preview The Sign of Four unit of work in more detail, click on the images.

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